As an IT leader, I have been focusing on the enterprise digital transformation in recent years. That is, how to use the latest technologies and systems to grow business.
Besides IT, I have been studing psychology and Chinese medicine and obtained the psychology counsellor certificate.
I found three rules in in psychology and Chinese medicine also apply to enterprise digital transformation.
This is an interesting finding worth sharing.
Rule #1: individual hero doesn't work
Guess how much % does a consultant contribute to the healing in psychological counseling / treatment?
Answer:
- 40% healing is not directly related to psychotherapy.
- 30% healing is related to the willingness of visitors to get better. For example, there is an expert who is very popular. Visitors need to wait for at least six months to get an appointment. During this waiting period, many visitors recovered by themselves.
- 30% healing is related to psychotherapy itself. 15% of them are related to the therapist.
In short, the counselor/therapist play a role of only 1/7 during a consultation/treatment that contibutes to the healing of a patient.
If you want to recover, it is your job to take medicine on time and complete your assignment.
Now, let's Look at Chinese medicine.
One famous doctor said that he is reluctant to treat certain patients such as flight attendant or nurse.
It is not "discrimination" of these occupations. For the society, their contribution is very important. But for their own health, it is not a good thing.
To keep healthy, you need to follow a healthy life style, i.e. to sleep well and sleep on time. You will not become healthy by seeing the doctor and taking medicine only.
The same is true for enterprises to drive digital transformations.
New ideas and concepts come up every day, block chain, AR/VR, automation, etc etc
It becomes a fashion to initiate a digital transformation.
However, technologies are just tools and means.
The key is for business leaders to set direction, optimize existing processes, and make appropriate organizational restructuring and personnel adjustments.
These are the prerequisites, to implement a system is the last step.
In the past two years, BI tool (data/report visualization) is very hot, and a lot companies are rushing to implement BI.
After all, BI is just a display tool. The quality of the report depends on the KPIs definition, the data source quality, and the analysis dimensions.
A tool cannot help, If these are not clear, it is just garbage in, garbage out. It is more cost effective to use excel.
Rule #2: Comprehensive thinking framework
In psychological counseling, the counselor is normally excel in genre, such as psychoanalysis, cognitive therapy, behavioral therapy, etc.
Every genre has a theoretical system behind it. According to this system (model), the consultant makes sense of the situation in his / her mind, finds out the potential root causes, and then prescribes the right treatment.
I am studying traditional Chinese medicine now. In the weekend, I go to my professor's clinic and assist him with the prescription. Every time a patient comes in, my professor will first makes an assessment.
For example, if the patient has a headache, my professor will ask, “Where is the location of your pain? Front, back, left, right?”
He will also ask “How do you feel? Continue hurting, hurt for a while, press pain?”, then ask “do you have any dizziness? Do you have any discomfort in other places of your body?"
What he does is known as "inquiry diagnosis", one of the four methods of diagnosis in Chinese medicine.
A doctor has a framework in his mind, and he asks questions to help assess the situation, analyze the possible causes, so that he can prescribe the right medicine.
Oral ulcers may be caused by some situation with your heart. You can spray a little watermelon frost to ease the symptom. But, if you want to cure the problem, you still have to find the root cause. Otherwise, the pain will reoccur.
Now, let's look at Enterprise digital transformation.
Before we implement any technology, we need to spend a lot of time to understand business needs. Ask question and do the assessment.
There is a classic case where a factory's equipment is out of service, causing millions of losses every day. The big boss invited the experts to check.
The expert walked around the equipment, knocked on it with a small hammer, listen to it carefully, and he finally drew a line on the device, saying: "There is a screw loosen here, tighten it and the issue will be fixed."
The charge was USD10,000.
The people in the factory reacted: "It costs $10,000 to draw a line?"
The expert replied as follows:
- Making chalk mark on generator: $ 1;
- Knowing where to make mark $ 9,999.
This is the value of talent. Why some talents worth tens of millions, because he / she brings the value.
An inexperienced doctors will prescribe watermelon frost therapy. An experienced doctor will help you to get rid of the "heart" disease.
If you really want to have a successful digital transformation, it is necessary to spend money and hire experienced talents and teams.
Rule #3: It is a good thing to have symptoms. People will only change if it hurts.
Many family problems are reflected via kids. For example, disguested to learn, internet addiction, anorexia... Children, as the most vulnerable party in the family, have taken on the problems of the whole family.
The child's "symptoms" are a kind of "help" to the whole family. It will force the family into the treatment room and seek professional help.
Sometimes, the counselor (therapist) removes the child's superficial problems by some means. For example, bring the child back to school. And then, the family stops consulting, because it seems that the problem has been solved.
This may not be a good thing. In fact, the fundamental problems are still there. The family atmosphere remain unchanged, another bigger issue is waiting to be triggered.
Now let's look at illness, pain, these are all symptoms to remind you to care about your health.
The tips to keep healthy is regular workout, a healthy diet, and a good mentality.
People spend time to pursue money and power. They only remember these tips when they are sick and start to follow. However, once they recover, they will return to the old life style.
So, sometimes it is "good" to be sick.
The same is true for enterprise. Only when the boss feels pain, he wants to change.
For example, when the boss cannot get real data, cannot understand the true state his business operations. He feels pain, and he wants to reform.
Everyone is talking about digital transformation.
The boss will think:
I want a BI tool, so that I can get real time data, and true data. Right now I have to wait one month for you to give me the report, plus, the data have been massaged after multiple layers! I am fed up with it!
Hey, my other entrepreneurial partners are all engaged in digitization and blockchain! Sounds good! Let’s do it.
Summary
To sum up, here are the three key mindset to drive a successful enterprise digital transformation:
- Driven from top down, driven from business. Not rely on one individual.
- A holistic thinking model and framework.
- A continuous improvement mindset. Pain is a reminder
Business always comes first, IT technology and systems are tools to enable business.
Remember, it is good to have symptoms and be painful. You will only change if you have a pain.
If there is a problem now, it is a good time to stop and take a look.
Thank you for reading.
This article was originally published in Chinese in "jianshu" on 2019-01-25.